Marijuana industry leaders and advocates are making preparations on the best ways to deal with the Trump administration which since its inception has been a “thorn in its flesh” hindering its business operations adversely. This time around, they will not spare any effort towards shielding themselves from the federal raids and they are even better prepared after receiving news from trusted sources that indeed there was going to be “greater enforcement” on the horizon. From a speculative point of view, more interesting times lie ahead!

The senior director of government relations with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), Beth Collins and other industry representatives met in Washington over the weekend for the National Medical Cannabis Unity Conference. As a matter of fact, the conference’s main point of focus was regarding the medical marijuana access. However, the issues about the new administration’s approach to the drug in general outshone the other topics in a big way. Both White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have advocated for tougher ways of dealing with marijuana enforcement. In the previous week, they made an announcement regarding the crime reduction task force that was set up to carry out an in-depth evaluation of the marijuana enforcement policy.

In late February, Spicer had promised that there was going to be more enforcement on marijuana. The top executive thought of the growing opioid addiction as something that needed to be condemned adding that those encouraging it needed to be dealt with severely. The Obama administration was friendly and thus they were peaceful back then. The latest news have it that the Senate in the legal pot state of Colorado amended a bill that would create room for the marijuana growers as well a sellers to classify their product as medical and that would go along way to shield them from the federal crackdown as was reported by the Associated Press.

Hope still lingers that some champions will work on the matter in the best way possible to reach a point of good understanding with the administration to help end the federal conflict.